re: alliance troubles Mid-West miners chasing the railsNews:...

re: alliance troubles Mid-West miners chasing the rails
News: 29-June-06 by Mark Beyer

Tensions are emerging between members of the Geraldton Iron Ore Alliance over concerns one of its members is pre-empting proper planning for the region.

Murchison Metals has established a consortium with Mitsubishi, Toll Holdings and South Korea’s Posco Engineering to consider the private development of a new port at Oakajee and a rail link to planned iron ore mines in the region.

Murchison’s executive chairman Paul Kopejtka emphasised this week that the $1.6 billion project was designed to provide open access infrastructure that could be used by a range of miners and other industries.

The ultimate capacity of the deep water port would be 160 million tonnes per year, which would far exceed projected iron ore production.

Murchison has already commenced a feasibility study, expected to cost about $15 million, into the proposed infrastructure.

It initially announced this week that its consortium partners would conduct the study but later said this would not be the case.

“Murchison have jumped the gun,” an industry source said this week.

“What they are doing is not necessarily consistent with the plans of the others in the industry”.

The source said the biggest concern was the state government would take control of infrastructure development if the industry did not present a unified position.

Geraldton Iron Ore Alliance chairman Clive Brown said a lot of planning was still needed, with alliance members “seeking to find common ground” on issues like the port, the adjacent industrial estate and the route for the rail line.

Mr Brown, the former state development minister, also said that, other than Oakajee being named as the preferred port site, public policy issues had not yet been resolved.

“We don’t want to spend tens of millions of dollars on this before those policy decisions are made,” he said.

The alliance had been hoping to resolve the policy issues by the end of this month but will not meet that target. Apart from Murchison, other members of the alliance include Midwest Corporation and Gindalbie Metals, which are planning to use the new port at Oakajee, and Mt Gibson Iron, which will continue using the port at Geraldton.

Murchison managing director Trevor Matthews said his company was working closely with other alliance members.

“We have taken account of the needs of the other companies,” Mr Matthews said.